Insert Memory Card: Dubai in 20 hours

I just spent a deliriously saturated day in the surreal city of Dubai.

   

A city where the colonnades are embedded with glitter (seriously)

and all that is solid melts into gold...

 A city where the new

 trumps the old

 and progress starts at the 124th floor

a city where (with a big enough wallet) you can manifest an Alpine village

 

or make it rain men (you know you've always wanted to)

A place where the mall and mosque become one in the same

and the end of the line is always in sight...

Alice in Wonderland Meets German Engineering

    Here is a mind-bending look at the new Massimiliano Fuksas mall
    for your viewing pleasure. If strawberries and cream
    (and a lot of faceted glass) could manifest into a building,
    I think it would look very similar to this....

 

looking good, Frankfurt!

Sick in Berlin

Filosofia is home sick this week so in lieu of all of the fun stuff I should be seeing, eating, and thinking about in Berlin, may I instead present you will some of the highlights of what I was seeing, eating, and thinking about the last time I was here.

Ode to Los Angeles Part II: Farewell Architecture

     Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?
    -Jack Keroac, On the Road

    

    Don't think I won't miss you Los Angeles...

    When your architecture can look like this:

    So for now....

    Goodbye Pierre and your Case Study Homes

    Goodbye Louis and your Salk Institute

    Goodbye Richard and your hard to get into Health House

    Goodbye Frank and your Californian experiments

    Goodbye Greene and Greene Brothers

    So long Coop Himmelb(l)au with your un-occupiable symbolism

 

    and crazy classrooms

    Goodbye Bradbury Building

    And Buck House doorknobs

    So long Bullocks Wilshire Building and your awesome light inlays

    And farewell to you, Perloff Hall

    I'll see you in Berlin, Filosofers!